Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and here is<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Not so many people.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 In part, apparently, because we are doing an increasingly poor job of explaining to the people who come through the doors what\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2010\/09\/here-is-the-church-here-is-the-steeple-open-the-doors-and-here-is\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and here is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Not so many people.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 In part, apparently, because we are doing an increasingly poor job of explaining to the people who come through the doors what\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2010\/09\/here-is-the-church-here-is-the-steeple-open-the-doors-and-here-is\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"What God Wants for Your Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-29T14:08:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Frederick Schmidt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Frederick Schmidt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2010\/09\/here-is-the-church-here-is-the-steeple-open-the-doors-and-here-is\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2010\/09\/here-is-the-church-here-is-the-steeple-open-the-doors-and-here-is\/\",\"name\":\"Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and here is\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-09-29T14:08:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-09-29T14:08:20+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/#\/schema\/person\/ddfdcfcb384439499b89f4fc91aa3f21\"},\"description\":\"Not so many people.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 In part, apparently, because we are doing an increasingly poor job of explaining to the people who come through the doors what\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2010\/09\/here-is-the-church-here-is-the-steeple-open-the-doors-and-here-is\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2010\/09\/here-is-the-church-here-is-the-steeple-open-the-doors-and-here-is\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2010\/09\/here-is-the-church-here-is-the-steeple-open-the-doors-and-here-is\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and here is\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/\",\"name\":\"What God Wants for Your Life\",\"description\":\"Thoughts on the perennial demands and changing shape of Christian spirituality.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/#\/schema\/person\/ddfdcfcb384439499b89f4fc91aa3f21\",\"name\":\"Frederick Schmidt\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/683afd03c0a0abb940f8fe5cb3183269?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/683afd03c0a0abb940f8fe5cb3183269?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Frederick Schmidt\"},\"description\":\"The Reverend Dr. Frederick W. Schmidt, Jr. is inaugural holder of the Rueben P. Job Chair in Spiritual Formation and a Senior Scholar at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL. He is also Vice Rector at Good Shepherd, Brentwood, TN; an Episcopal Priest; spiritual director; retreat facilitator; conference leader; and writer. He is the author of numerous published articles and reviews, as well as several books: A Still Small Voice: Women, Ordination and the Church (Syracuse University Press, 1998), The Changing Face of God (Morehouse, 2000), When Suffering Persists (Morehouse, 2001), in Italian translation: Sofferenza, All ricerca di una riposta (Torino: Claudiana, 2004), What God Wants for Your Life \ufeff(Harper, 2005), Conversations with Scripture: Revelation (Morehouse, 2005), \ufeffConversations with Scripture: Luke \ufeff(Morehouse, 2009), and The Dave Test (Abingdon, 2013). He and his wife, Natalie (who is also an Episcopal priest), live in Arrington, TN. 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{"id":87,"date":"2010-09-29T14:08:20","date_gmt":"2010-09-29T14:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/experts.patheos.com\/expert\/frederickwschmidt\/2010\/09\/29\/here-is-the-church-here-is-the-steeple-open-the-doors-and-here-is\/"},"modified":"2010-09-29T14:08:20","modified_gmt":"2010-09-29T14:08:20","slug":"here-is-the-church-here-is-the-steeple-open-the-doors-and-here-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2010\/09\/here-is-the-church-here-is-the-steeple-open-the-doors-and-here-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and here is"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A recent Pew Research Center report concluded:<\/p>\n

Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons<\/a> are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions. On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center\u2019s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively. Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education.\u00a0 For a complete report, see:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/pewforum.org\/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices\/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx<\/p>\n

Telling people why you believe what you believe and why it makes a difference does not need to be mean or abusive.\u00a0 Presumably we all believe a few things deeply \u2014 certainly mature people who are guided by any principles at all do.\u00a0 So why not believe something deeply if you are going to bother going to church?<\/p>\n

The problem is, it\u2019s a short distance from \u201cbring your questions, we don\u2019t believe in anything in particular\u201d to \u201cwhy bother going at all, if all I have are unanswerable questions and all you have is the tolerant ignorance to sit with me while I ask them?\u201d\u00a0 Why would I need that kind of church?\u00a0 Companionship?\u00a0 There are better ways of forging intimacy.\u00a0 Tolerant space?\u00a0 We should all be working for that in a country where freedom of speech and belief is paramount, why add another institution to the complexity.<\/p>\n

The creeds and beliefs that are the hallmark of churches is the means by which spirituality gets traction in people\u2019s lives.\u00a0 They provide people with a common vocabulary and understanding of the God they follow, a shared approach to worship that lies at the heart of the spiritual pilgrimage on which they have embarked, and a means of communicating the faith they have embraced to others and across the generations.<\/p>\n

But for that to be possible, people need to know what they believe.\u00a0 A church where people know that need not be a church marked by unthinking dogmatism, nor do the people who attend need to subscribe in a rigid and uniform way to the faith a church of that kind professes.\u00a0 And people with questions need not be banished.\u00a0 The characterization of churches as believing or open as the only two alternatives available is unreal at best and a mean-spirited rhetorical device meant to crush only some convictions.<\/p>\n

But once institutionalized agnosticism is privileged by that kind of language, it isn\u2019t long before people rightly conclude that there really is no reason for going to church at all.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"